These are just my opinions. I cannot promise that I will be perfect, but I can promise that I will seek to understand and illuminate whatever moves that the Giants make (my obsession and compulsion). I will share my love of baseball and my passion for the Giants. And I will try to teach, best that I can. Often, I tackle the prevailing mood among Giants fans and see if that is a correct stance, good or bad.

Info on Blog

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Your 2011 Giants Draft Pick Signings

Andy Baggerly reported in the newspaper today that "the Giants came to terms with their top 13 selections and 27 of their first 31. Among them was Oregon State catcher Andrew Susac, who was considered a steal as a second-rounder. Baseball America reported that Susac received first -round money - a $1.1 million bonus."

The Giants also signed 14th round pick, 3B Garrett Buechele, who is related to former major leaguer, Steve Buechele. In fact, his full name is Steven Garrett Buechele. His numbers went way down in 2011, else he probably would have been drafted higher, he was drafted in the 18th round by the Rangers in the 2010 MLB draft, as he was a redshirted sophomore last season.

Giants Thoughts

The general consensus that I saw was that the Giants had a pretty good haul of players from this draft, assuming they signed everyone. As noted above, they "Got Heem!", signing their top 13 picks, and in particular, Andrew Susac, Ricky Oropesa, and Josh Osich, who were all potential first round picks who fell for a variety of reasons.

Susac signed for approximately what he would have gotten had he been drafted in Panik's slot instead (Joe Panik got $1.16M, which is slightly higher than what the 29th pick got in 2010's draft; rumors were that the slots were raised 5-10% this season, but Panik got about 4% more), which many mock drafts had him picked around there. The 86th pick got $411,000 last season; slot was $411,300 (Wow, KC was so cheap that they would not even give that pick the extra $300 that the slot allowed? Explains why they have been so bad for so long...).

Oropesa signed for mid-second round money, which is about double the slot money. The 116th pick was slotted for $258,300 in 2010, and 5-10% would put it about half what he signed for. Some of the rankings I saw thought that he could go in the end of the first round, but most had him going in the mid-to-late second round.

Osich signed for late second round money. His slot was around the low $100K range, so he got about 3-4 times what his overall pick region would normally get. He was actually selected in the Giants #29 draft pick in a few mock drafts, but his injury scared off a lot of teams, and he basically agreed to the mid-way point between a first round and where he ended up.

Also, I don't think I reported on my blog, but Kyle Crick signed for $900K relatively early. According to BA, his overall pick was slotted for $717,300. A lot of the draft pundits said that had Crick and Panik been selected in each other's slot, that would have made more sense, as Panik was not rated that highly by a lot of the draft evaluators. However, there were a couple (well known too, Sickels and Perfect Games) who thought Panik, while a slight overdraft at worse, was not horribly so, and, in any case, if the Giants wanted him, he most probably would not have fell to them by their #49 pick. Sickels was OK with that pick, and Perfect Games thought that Panik had risen late to be equal to the other middle infielders thought to be drafted in the 20-29 draft range, Kolten Wong and Levi Michael (drafted #22 and #30, respectively).

The Giants got a great haul, with many players who were potential late first round draft picks in Panik, Crick, Susac, Oropesa, and Osich. That is something the Giants have emphasized since Barr took over the draft, selecting players who were potential first round draftees who fell for whatever reason. Gillaspie, Crawford, and Parker are among those who the Giants picked up in later rounds when they either had a poor season or fell for salary demands. There were good words also about the other guys selected relatively early, Bryce Bandilla, Chris Marlowe, and Raymond Black.

The Giants picked up 6 pitchers with their first 10 picks overall. They have traditionally emphasized getting pitchers in their drafts, even after Barr took over the draft from Tidrow, picking more pitchers than position players, even though on all rosters there are more position players than pitchers. They also picked up middle infielders Joseph Panik, Jean Delgado, and Kelby Tomlinson in their first 13 picks. And two 3B among their first 15 picks in Oropesa and Buechele.

I, Me, Mine

Wow, this was easy and amazingly free. I am a big Giants fan and I hope to use my experience in business (MBA) and analytics (nearly 25 years) to bring up interesting facts to other Giants fans so that we may better understand the team's chances for success (or not) and hopefully share their insights with me. Please read my "OGC's Business Plan" link to better understand what my philosophy is for building a successful MLB team.
I want to teach and share my love of baseball and, in particular, my love for the San Francisco Giants. I will believe to my dying days that Bobby Bonds should be in Baseball’s Hall of Fame for being one of the few to bring the combination of power and speed to the game.
Why a blog? I love technology and society and just wanted to participate in this trend to see what it felt like. Plus I have a lot of questions I would like answered about the Giants and since I don't see anyone else tackling them, I've taken it upon myself to do it. Not that I'm that special, but just that I'm willing to put in the time to investigate them.